£1.2bn in funding as Government finally publishes cycling and walking investment strategy

You only need look at some of shit that was accepted by CTC/CUK/Sustrans and was signed off by them such as the disgraceful Bedford 'turbo' roundabout where £300,000 of cycling safety money was spent effectively increasing the speed of motorists through the roundabout and removing making people on bikes from the roads whilst making it more awkward, no more safe and around 6-10 times longer than if they'd sstayed on the road. I mean to make a right turn you have to traverse 4 zebra crossings (2 for each carriageway) then still have to ride off at an angle with speeding motors because the angle has not being made acute enough to reduce max speeds.

and this BS was signed off by the cycling organisations!!

large swathes of this won't be for cycling, another big % will be for infra that is just patently crap and ineffective or worse more dangerous.

You only need look at places like Groningen where they are spending €85/head over the next 5 years in a city that already has a high model share for people on bikes to know the £3/head is just never going to make a dent, not when most of that will be earmarked for London and/or designs that are as i described above.

https://ecf.com/news-and-events/news/groningen-spending-%E2%82%AC8500000...

when you have a measured €31Billion saving in health alone for a country like the Netherlands due to cycling the thought processes of our government are utterly illogical.

"The report shows that the country invests about half a billion euros per year in cycling and reaps a benefit over 60 times as high” – commented ECF health policy officer, Dr. Randy Rzewnicki.

Worth one single cheer perhaps, despite its obvious failings.  Just slightly better than nothing, but as other commenters have already pointed out, about a quarter of what is required to achieve its aims, which are anyway so far in the future as to be meaningless.

When the government announces a reversal of funding, with cycling and walking at the top, and building more roads at the bottom, it might be worth three cheers.  Until then this is just pious expressions of intent without, yet again, providing the funding.

I hope this becomes an election issue and the government are exposed for the hypocrites they are.

My local paper recently ran a story on £5.7m funding for a Newbury to Windsor cycle path - the plan is utter nonsense and in places will make cycling less safe (the painted lines onthe A4 out of Newbury will encourage closer passes as evidenced by 'that' Sainsburys lorry and the research here: http://ubir.bolton.ac.uk/43/1/ce_journalspr-6.pdf).

The trouble is the comments I get are along the lines of ' . . . that is £5.7m that could be spent on filling pot holes or nurses (note the priorities) etc etc'

So if the cycling 'community' complain about £1bn in funding we will never get anywhere. So, rather than spreading this thinly across all local bodies a single place should get it all (preferably in a Tory heartland). When the inevitable benefits are demonstrated, demand for proper funding will come thick and fast.

That's what I reckon!

It's so sad that our targets are so underwhelming and laughably long in the future.

The government do not give a shit about active travel. This much is clear. Chris Grayling is just about the worst person that could have been put in charge of Transport, for anyone that gives a damn about making our roads both safer and more cycle friendly.

Don't suppose anyone can fact check the "tripled spending on cycling since 2010" claim ? Though I appreciate spending thruppence instead of an old fashioned penny would count

But still 2040,sheesh talk about kicking it into the long grass, Elon Musk reckons he will have built a colony on Mars by then

Wow - even though the cost of cancer and Coronary Heart disease to the NHS costs over £25 Billion PER YEAR, and the report yesterday said cycling can cut these by 50% (with 250,000 people sampled so its  a massively significant study). 

This government likes spending money on things that make people unhealthier! Thats crazy.

What ambition. 2025 and 2040! Far too little and way, way too late. Nearly enough time for another generation of diabetics.

Minister of Doublespeak, Chris Grayling, commented (in his head)*: “We are making cycling and walking more accessible to everyone because of our open [car] door policy and by getting pesky non-road-user cyclists off the roads which belong to cars"

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/transport-secretary-chris-...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/transport-secretary-chris-...

* possibly

£1 billion over 5 years. So £200 million per year. So £3.12 per person, per year. Of which nearly half is related to "local growth funding" which may or may not happen.

Compared to the £2.6 billion allocated to the highways agency for the financial year 2018/19 alone, and the £60 billion+ cost of HS2.

Not. Good. Enough.